Beginning August 23^rd, 120 church leaders, campus ministers, and student leaders will be calling the United Methodist Church to pray as a new school year begins. Our vision has been to turn the heart of the church towards our nation’s campuses to pray for and with college students.  You can join us by going to www.pray40.com and signing up – you don’t even have to be United Methodist.

The prayers are mostly in (and for the 3 of you who haven’t, I know who you are and I’m coming for you), the website is working, the press releases and social media is about to get cranked up – but that’s not what I want to talk with you about.  It’s about the lessons I’ve learned in this process – let me share two with you.

Lesson #1 – No one can do it alone.

In a day and age that is dominated by celebrity, I wish I could say the church was unaffected – but its not.  We have our own superstars and myths surrounding them – but it’s a distorted view of reality and incompatible with the kind of community we are called to live out in Scripture.  The truth is that no one can do it alone.

I’m more convinced of that fact with each step we take in this initiative.  We were made for relationships with God and each other.  We all need friends to become all we were created to be.

Por ejemplo:  Pray 40.  It would not exist unless I had struck up a friendship with my long lost twin, Ashlee Alley (actually, we are identical twins – just not each other’s).  Here’s how it works:

Me – I’m the big idea guy.

Ashlee – she puts each idea through a rigorous 250-point inspection and if it survives – we go for it.

Me – I cast vision and paint pictures of how it should be.

Ashlee – she makes lists of what needs to happen for it to succeed.

Me – some how I get everyone moving in the same direction.

Ashlee – some how she keeps us on target.

You starting to get the picture?

For all my dreams and big goals for campus ministry, I never imagined that they would begin with some key friendships.  I used to think I had to do it on my own.  I had to blaze the trail and then come back to show others the way.  It was up to me to save the universe.  But all it got me was tired, frustrated, and alone.

In January, I listened to an interview with Pete Greig of 24/7 prayer, talk about an epiphany he had when his wife got sick.  He stopped showing up to meetings, he stopped working on projects with people, and eventually they stopped being his friend.  He realized, painfully, that our equation for friendship usually works out to be something like this:

Vision + Task = Friendship

It was then that he decided that he had to change the equation to reflect the Kingdom value of relationships, and he came up with this:

Friendship + Vision = Task

Tasks can come and go, visions can change or fade, but friendship is the foundation of how God moves in our lives and the world.

So what does this have to do with Pray 40?  I believe it is a bunch of people trying to figure out what God wants to do with us as, we learn how to be friends to one another.  And it all has poured out of Ashlee and I’s friendship with Jesus and each other.  It has gotten people out of their silos and camps.  It has started conversations and raised common ground no one knew was there.  It has broken stereotypes and called into questions assumptions that kept people divided. It has turned strangers – in the same church even – into new friends.

And this is encouraging to me, because after all, the Bible is a record of God’s friendship with His people.  I wonder how He will use our friendships to further His story in our days?

Lesson #2 – The disconnect between the Word, Prayer, and Action

When we invited the 120 authors to write a prayer, we asked them to include three elements:

1. Scripture Passage: start with a passage that speaks to you for this generation of college students
2. Prayer: speak those words back to God for our nation’s campuses
3. Action: suggest a concrete way that those praying these prayers can live them out in their day to day lives. 

 

While our directions could have been a lot clearer, we found ourselves being stretched to move from praying to practicing our prayers.  I see the problem stemming from the fact that we have become accustomed to praying and then waiting for God to do something about it.   Yet I’m more convinced that we shouldn’t pray unless we are willing for God to use us to answer those same prayers.

There are two real dangers here:

1. Prayer without action anesthetizes our hearts to the dreams of God and needs of the world.
2. Action without prayer disconnects us from how God is already working in the situation.

Or in other words, we sit back and complain about the world and wonder when God is going to do something about it or run off ahead of God never caring to ask or see what God would have us do.

As those who follow the Word of God, we must find ourselves in the rhythm of listening, reciting, and then practicing the promises that God has spoken into time and history.  It’s not enough to mutter prayers in our churches and campus ministries – we must allow the Spirit of God to incarnate them in our daily relationships.

Over the next three weeks, I will be training over 20 campus ministries in Missouri and North Alabama to do just that – listen, pray, and practice the Word in small groups and in their ministries.  On August 19^th at 7 p.m. CST – I will be holding a webinar and giving away a resource you can use in your own campus ministry with your staff and students.  You can find out more information at SMALL GROUP SEMINAR or visit www.thecampuscoach.org/events for more information.

One final note:  What is truly encouraging about what Guy has done with this Blog-A-Thon is gather together a new group of people who didn’t even know they were friends – yet.  He hasn’t simply read or prayed about building community among various tribes, he has actually become part of the answer.  Thanks Guy!

[ Blog-a-thon home ]

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Creighton Alexander served 12 years in campus ministry on three campuses: SMU, KU & UMKC. Currently, he serves as the Campus Coach for the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church.  He also serves as the Co-Editor for College Union, and as the Director of Refresh Conference, a winter training event for campus pastors.  Partnering with Griffith Coaching, he is developing a Campus Ministry Bootcamp to train new campus pastors.

Creighton holds a B.S., Texas Tech; and M.Div., Asbury Theological Seminary.  He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Kansas in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.

He and his wife, Nikki, have three children & live in Overland Park, KS.